Anarock Report: Housing sales may increase 5-7% this festive season.

By Abhay Shah, Realty Quarter

The slew of measures taken by the Modi government to boost housing demand is expected to increase housing sales in the festive season by 5-7%, Anarock Research said in a report.

Freebies to attract customers this festive season beginning with Ganesh Chaturthi range from plain vanilla cost cuts, money-saving opportunities such as waived stamp duty and registration fees, or ‘white products’ such as furniture and household electronics, it said. The NHB eliminated the earlier popular subvention schemes.

MMR’s most common festive offers are to waive GST and stamp duties and registration fees. In NCR, such developers are doling out discounts through GST and waivers stamp duty/registration fees and some are even adding it with free vehicle parking, clubhouse membership and various gifts such as modular kitchens, the report said.

The impetus induced by the policy will primarily attract end-users-buyers looking to buy homes for personal use. It’s no secret, though, that end-user sales alone will not be enough to revive an industry that has historically relied on healthy investor activity to drive sales momentum, said Anuj Puri, Chairman – ANAROCK Property Consultants.

With this in mind, it is anticipated that the government will come up with extra exclusive measures for the real estate sector – expected shortly at any time – then it could also increase investor trust, he said.  Traditionally, when it comes to residential sales, the festive quarter performs better than the past quarter of the year-the mixture of religious feeling and festive deals and freebies during this part of the year is a powerful blend, the report noted.

For example, 70,000 homes sold in the seven major cities in the fourth quarter of 2015.

However, as tempting as it was for builders to think that this was an unshakeable performance standard, it was certainly shaken just a year ago. Following the announcement in this critical quarter of 2016 of demonetisation (DeMo), housing sales halved to 32,100 units.

RERA’s implementation in early 2017 laid the stage for another turnaround, with a 44% increase in housing sales in the last quarter of 2017. This trend was fortified in the fourth quarter of 2018’s festive season quarter with 69,900 units sold in the era, the research said.